Our readers speak out

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Israel Dear editor, The article about Palestinians and Israel in January's issue had the usual distortion and gross bias one comes to expect from left-wing periodicals. If the situation there were not so serious, your simplification of it would be laughable.

"Genocide" is used in a typically glib way which trivializes the most significant and unique one: the holocaust. But then, perhaps that is the author's intention. No doubt, many Palestinians are treated unfairly and the entire situation seems unjust, but you never show the other side.

If the situation were reversed and the Palestinians had their own state instead, they'd be carrying out a systematic war of extermination against Jews and Israel. Some leaders of the P.L.O. have said or implied as much, and that is why Israeli leaders continue their aggressive policy.

One of the biggest shames, though, is that many Jewish leftists side with the Palestinians. In doing so, they betray their own people in an especially insidious way. I think you should print Israel's side or else apologize for hateful bias against Israel.

Robert Silvers, River Forest, Il.

Ireland

Dear editor, In the aftermath of the Nov. 8, 1987, bomb explosion in Enniskillen, Ireland, a huge military and political police operation was mounted jointly throughout the 32 counties by the British and Dublin governments, allegedly in search of Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms dumps.

An Phoblacht, the most-read newsweekly of the Irish Republican movement, reported that "for over a week the gardai raided over 50,000 homes, targeting not only republicans but community and cultural activists, trade unionists and ordinary citizens in a massive political informationgathering and intimidation exercise."

On Jan. 21, according to International Viewpoint magazine, a united-front meeting to denounce the raids was held in Dublin at the hall of the Irish Distributive and Allied Trades